Hasina catches up with friends
By IANSTuesday, January 12, 2010
NEW DELHI - Armed with a billion-dollar credit line and a clutch of pacts that have given a new dimension to bilateral ties, it was a day of catching up with longtime Indian friends for visiting Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Day 3 of her first state visit to India started with a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan where the 61-year-old leader was conferred the prestigious Indira Gandhi Peace Prize.
The Gandhi family’s connection to Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the legendary “Bangabandhu” Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, goes back decades. Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy and daughter Saima Wazed Hossain Putul met the Gandhi family Monday amid a lot of warmth and bonhomie.
In the afternoon, after addressing a gathering of Indian industrialists, Sheikh Hasina found time to meet her long-time family friend Suvra Mukherjee, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjees ailing wife.
Hasina had known the Mukherjees since her stay in India between 1975 to 1981 in those dark days after Hasinas father Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was assassinated.
Hasina also called on former prime minister I.K. Gujral with whom she shares an excellent rapport. Known for the eponymous Gujral doctrine that espoused equitable ties with neighbours, the former prime minister expressed his happiness at this positive turn in the once difficult India-Bangladesh relations.
Sheikh Hasina goes to Ajmer, home to the shrine of the much-revered sufi shrine, Wednesday, wrapping up a four-day visit that analysts have described as “path-breaking”.
